Gorgeous Greeks: Seductive Secrets

CHAPTER FOUR

‘WHAT?’ Eleanor heard the screech of her own voice and briefly closed her eyes. She opened them and shook her head. ‘No.’

Jace arched an eyebrow in challenge. ‘Why not? You didn’t seem to have a problem with planning the party before.’

‘You can’t be serious. After everything—’

‘We’re professionals, Eleanor.’ Jace’s voice was hard, and Eleanor saw a bleak darkness in his eyes. She felt its answer in herself, and she wondered if Jace was trying to prove something to himself, just as she was. The past is finished. It doesn’t matter. I’m not hurt.

But she was. And she was so tired of pretending she wasn’t. Yet even so she couldn’t admit that to Jace. She felt exposed enough, considering all she’d already revealed. She wasn’t about to say anything more. ‘Of course we’re professionals, Jace. But I simply think it would be sensible—not to mention more productive—to have a colleague plan your event.’

‘I don’t.’

Why was he doing this? She shook her head again. ‘I told you at your office—’

‘That you were quitting? Lucky for you I didn’t communicate that to your boss. I don’t think she would have been pleased. And somehow I had a feeling you might change your mind.’ His mouth twisted sardonically, his eyes glinting.

Eleanor didn’t answer. She knew just how displeased Lily would have been. She might have thrown her entire career away in a single, emotional moment, and Jace at least had had the presence of mind not to let her do it.

She supposed she should be grateful.

Eleanor walked slowly back to the window. It had become her place of retreat; either that or she was simply backed into a corner. ‘I don’t understand why you want to do this,’ she said quietly. ‘Or what can be gained—for either of us.’

Jace shrugged one powerful shoulder. ‘You’re the best planner. Or so I was told.’

‘You didn’t even like my ideas,’ Eleanor protested numbly. What she really wanted to say was, Why doesn’t being with me hurt you? She felt his presence like an agony, exquisitely painful. And he wanted her to plan his party?

‘I just know you can do better.’

She shook her head, even as she acknowledged that he was right. She could do better. She’d fought long and hard to get to where she was in her business and stay there. And she wasn’t about to throw it all away simply because Jace had come back into her life—however briefly—and stirred up some old memories. She could shove them down again. She could handle this party. She could handle Jace. Doing it would help her feel more in control, and God knew she needed to feel that again.

She felt as if she were spinning out of it, and she couldn’t stand the sense of powerlessness. She’d felt that before, when Jace had walked out of her life. When the ultrasound technician had sorrowfully shaken her head, and the doctor had come in to give her lots of important-sounding words and clinical, medical terms.

She wasn’t going to feel it now.

She turned around. Jace gazed at her, waiting, assessing. She had no idea why he still wanted her to plan his wretched party, what he hoped to gain or prove. Or was the past nothing more than a finished chapter of a sad story? Could he actually move on so quickly, minutes after she’d told him the truth? She made herself not care. She’d done that before, plenty of times, starting when she was a little girl and her mother had worked late again and again, missing plays and soccer matches and anything important. When Jace had walked away, when she’d lost her little girl, when life had seemed empty and endless and without hope—she’d survived by making herself not care. By blanking her mind to any thought—any possibility—that was too painful. Too hard. And she could keep doing it. Keep surviving. Keep not caring.

Eleanor smiled coolly. ‘Fine, Jace. I’ll plan your party. Satisfied?’

‘Getting there.’

‘And it’s late. I’d like to go to bed.’ Too late she realised how laced those words were with innuendo—and remembrance. And so did Jace. She saw it in the subtle flaring of his eyes, the way they turned to sleepy silver. And before she could stop herself, her mind flashed images from a lifetime ago—a lifetime with Jace. Lying in his arms, tracing circles on the bare, bronze skin of his chest. Laughing, stretching like a cat, sleepy and secure. Sated. Loving every moment of being with him, because she’d been young and naive enough to think it was real and that it would never end.

Eleanor swallowed. ‘I’m tired,’ she said as an explanation, but it came out in a whisper. Jace smiled.

‘So am I.’

Was she imagining the current that suddenly seemed to run between them, alive and electric? She must be, because surely, surely there was nothing between them. After everything that had happened—after everything she had endured—there could be nothing between them now.

Yet that didn’t stop her from remembering just how good it had once been.

‘Goodnight, Jace,’ Eleanor said, and her voice, to her relief, sounded flat and final and almost cold. Jace ignored her.

He took a step towards her. Eleanor held her breath. She didn’t speak, didn’t move. Didn’t protest. Another step, and he was only inches away. He lifted his hand and she braced herself for his touch, welcomed it even, wondering what it would feel like after all these years. What he would feel like.

And even as she stood there, still and silent, waiting for him to touch her, he dropped his hand, smiling almost sadly. ‘Goodnight, Ellie,’ he said, and this time Eleanor didn’t try to correct him.

She watched him leave, not realising until the door had shut that she was still holding her breath. She let it out in a long, shuddery rush.

She could do this. She had to.

Jace strode from Eleanor’s apartment, his body filled with a restless energy, his mind teeming with both possibility and fury. He was angry at himself, at fate, at life itself.

So much waste. So much wrong.

Guilt rushed into the corners of his mind, the empty spaces in his heart. He could hardly bear to think what Eleanor must have felt, what she’d endured alone.

If only—

Two desperate and dangerous words.

If only he’d known. If only he’d waited and said something, asked her—

If only. If only.

There was no such thing as if only. There was only regret.

And hope.

Jace shook his head in silent disbelief. Hope had long since become an unfamiliar concept. What on earth could he hope for? Love, family, children—he’d turned his back on them all. Was he now actually thinking that he could change that? Change himself? It would not be so easy.

For years work had been his only respite, his only comfort. He’d come to New York as a favour to Leandro Atrikides, and as a favour to his father. He’d clean up the family mess and then he’d go home to Greece.

And forget about Eleanor Langley… just as he had once before.

Except he’d never forgotten her, not really. She’d always lurked on the fringes of his consciousness, memories drifting and dancing through his mind even when he tried to push them away. She lingered there now.

He recalled her scent, something young and girlish and flowery. He didn’t think she used the same perfume now. And her hair had been wild and curly and artless, not her current glossy bob. He remembered the feel of those curls bouncing against his chest as she laughed in his arms.

Now Eleanor Langley looked totally different from the young woman he’d fallen in love with. He wondered if the changes were intentional. Had she transformed herself into this hardened career woman on purpose? Or had it happened gradually, without her even realising, the product of ten years’ ceaseless striving in this heartless city?

And what about underneath?

Had her heart changed?

Ten years ago he’d judged her heart. He’d thought her cold and scheming and had walked away without ever finding out the truth. He’d thought he’d known it. He’d been so sure…

Now every certainty had been scattered, leaving him both hopeful and afraid. He didn’t know what the future could hold, for him or Eleanor. He didn’t even dare think, or question or wonder.

If only …

Jace left Eleanor’s building, clamping his mind down on that thought as he walked down the dark, empty street.

Eleanor woke slowly, swimming upwards through consciousness from a deep and dreamless sleep. She blinked slowly; her room seemed to be obscured by a soft white haze.

As she sat up in bed, pushing her tangled mass of hair out of her eyes, she realised why. It was snowing. She scrambled out of bed and hurried to the window, pressing her hand against the cold glass. Outside the city’s skyscrapers were lost in a snowstorm. Huge white flakes drifted down and the streets were already covered, the parked cars no more than white humps.

Snow. She smiled, suddenly feeling as excited and hopeful as a child when she’d had a rare snow day. There had been a blizzard once, when she was nine, and her mother had been forced to stay home from work. Eleanor still remembered that magical moment when her mother had decided to stay home for the day. The telephones hadn’t been working, and, according to the television, no one was going anywhere. For a moment that pinched look had left her mother’s face and she’d smiled and shrugged. ‘I guess we’ll have a snow day,’ she’d said.

They’d trudged to Central Park through several feet of fluffy whiteness armed with a metal baking sheet—all the sledges had been sold out at the shop—and gone sledging on Cedar Hill near Seventy-Ninth Street. The feeling of flying down the hill, the world no more than a blur of muted colour, her mother’s arms wrapped around her, was one Eleanor had never forgotten. She carried it with her like a treasure.

Snow. This sudden snowstorm felt like a treasure, a promise, a gift. Snow covered up all the grime and grit and hard concrete of the city, all the memories and regrets. It was a new beginning. A new hope. She didn’t have to think about what had happened before, didn’t have to carry the heavy, unbearable weight of ten years of memories or last night’s conversation with Jace. She’d let the snow fall over it, cloaking it in whiteness, hiding it from herself.

Suddenly, certainly, Eleanor knew how to make this party just what Jace wanted. What she wanted. Smiling with a new determination, she turned away from the window.

She soon became immersed in organisation, making calls, checking facts and details, and arranging the most amazing party Jace Zervas could ever imagine. The party of her career.

She loved the buzz of creating something, seeing it emerge from her own imagination, and this party in particular was both a challenge and a dream. She had just days to conjure something spectacular.

The amount of work also kept her from thinking. Remembering. She was grateful for the activity that kept her from dwelling on the pain Jace had raked up, the regrets that still lingered on the fringes of her mind.

If only I’d known…

In her mind she never let Jace finish that sentence.

Every night she fell into bed, too exhausted to think or wonder, yet even so in that vulnerable moment before sleep overtook her she found herself picturing Jace’s face, both as it had been ten years ago, young and smiling, and as it was now, determined and harsh. She remembered that shiver of electric awareness when he’d been in her apartment, when she had thought—perhaps even hoped—that he might touch her, and the memory carried her into the cocoon of sleep and insinuated itself into her dreams.

The day before the party Eleanor spent the afternoon making sure everything was in place at the event site. So much of planning an event like this was simply getting on the phone, putting in orders, cajoling and commanding at turns. Now the real fun began: making the magic.

‘It’s so unusual to have a party here at this time of year,’ Laura, the woman who managed the boathouse in Central Park, remarked as Eleanor went over the party details with her. ‘Especially with a request for the outside terrace. We’re completely booked for spring and summer, but December…’

‘I know,’ Eleanor agreed. It was part of the reason she’d just chosen the park’s boathouse as the venue; most other places had already been booked. And it was perfect for the kind of party she had planned. She surveyed the room, taking a mental count of the chairs and tables. ‘My client is looking for unusual,’ she explained, satisfied with the arrangements so far.

‘It won’t be too cold?’ Laura asked dubiously. Although the boathouse had inside seating, its most spectacular feature was the pillared terrace overlooking the park’s lake. Now the lake was frozen solid, and in the distance Eleanor could see the Angel of Bethesda fountain still shrouded in snow.

‘I hope not,’ she said cheerfully. ‘Of course, we’re working on that.’ She’d ordered electric heaters to be placed on the terrace in strategic spots, to warm up cold little hands and feet.

‘Well, all right,’ Laura said, still sounding doubtful, and Eleanor pushed away the thought that perhaps she was in fact crazy. Ever since she’d first seen those few fat flakes drifting down, she’d been gripped by a vision, a memory, and she’d let it drive her through one of the most intense working weeks she’d ever experienced.

It left little time or room for doubt. Yet now as Laura went back to her office and Eleanor was left alone in the boathouse’s Lake Room, she wondered if Jace would think this party was impressive enough. Suitable.

And she wondered why she should even care.

Sighing, Eleanor shook her head and walked over to the glass doors that led out onto the terrace. It was too late for doubts or regrets; the party was tomorrow night. Everything had been ordered, prepared, paid for. The invitations, in the shape of snowflakes, had been sent out to all the employees. All that was left was the doing.

Eleanor turned the door handle and pushed it open; a gust of freezing air hit her in the face. Drawing in a deep lungful of the cold, frosty air, she stepped out onto the terrace.

The sky was just darkening to violet, the sun disappearing behind the stark, bare branches that fringed the park. Eleanor stood by the railing, surveying the silent, frozen lake, the park empty of tourists or pedestrians on this cold evening. It never ceased to amaze her that she stood in nearly the exact centre of a city of eight million people, and the only sound was the creak and crack of shifting ice.

It’s going to be okay.

She let herself relax, unloosen all the tensed, tightly held parts of herself. She didn’t let herself relax too often; she knew from experience it was too hard once you let go to get it all back together again. Yet now, just for a moment, she let herself be still, serene—or as close to it as she could be.

It’s going to be okay.

She wasn’t even sure what was going to be okay: the party? The future? Something more nebulous that she couldn’t yet name? Eleanor had no answers.

‘They told me I’d find you here.’

Eleanor tensed, all the loosely held parts of herself coming together in a cold, hard ball. She turned slowly around to survey Jace.

He stood in the doorway, dressed in a navy suit and wool overcoat, a briefcase in one hand. His cheeks were reddened with cold, emphasising the silvery glint of his eyes and the inky blackness of his hair.

‘On the terrace?’ Eleanor said a bit stupidly, for despite her cool smile her mind seemed to have slowed down, only able to process how amazing he looked.

Jace smiled crookedly. It reminded her of the way he used to smile, back when they were students. Lovers. He hadn’t smiled like that in the last week; all his smiles had been cold or calculated, a cruel curving of the lips. This one was real, lopsided, and yet somehow sad. The memories still lay between them, heavy and unspoken. Eleanor wondered if they would always be there. ‘Actually, in the restaurant. But the door was open, so I figured you came out for a breath of fresh air.’

‘Very fresh,’ Eleanor agreed, and Jace smiled again. Her heart turned right over, a flip-flop that was both exciting and a little alarming. She didn’t want to respond to him, not physically, not emotionally. She didn’t want to feel anything at all. Yet somehow, even now, after everything they’d been through, after everything she’d endured, she still did.

He set his briefcase down by the door and joined her at the railing. ‘How’s it going?’

‘Good.’ She gave a quick little laugh; it sounded sharp. She knew what that laugh was: a defence mechanism. She inched away from him. ‘You haven’t been checking up on me all week. I expected an email or phone call to make sure the arrangements were acceptable.’ Her emphasis on the word, Eleanor knew, sounded petty.